After a long spell of letting many-an-event pass without noting it here, I’ve returned to keep you, fair reader, up to date on my goings-on. Up next: The Kate Bush Dance Troupe performs not one but TWO numbers in a very special event on Saturday December 15th. Merry Christmas Mary Boom is a co-production of ESP TV and Dirty Looks NYC which takes as its inspiration many holiday specials that I myself hold dear, including those by Kate Bush and RuPaul. We will perform in front of a live audience against a green screen/psychedelic Christmas backdrop while ESP TV live mixes the footage. Prepare to be dazzled. Check out the teaser below and buy tickets here. Please also visit KBDT’s Facebook page and Vimeo page to stay apprised of our updates. And do tell Kate to tune in to MNN.org on December 25th and January 1st to check out the results of this holiday spectacular. Here is the Facebook page for the event with additional guests and details.

Donna K. recently interviewed me for her blog Gravity Was Everywhere Back Then, and we talked green screens, process, humanity, space, and distribution models, among other things. The interview was part of a series profiling “interesting women of the current cultural landscape” that also includes interviews with Kate Gilmore and Nancy Gerstman of Zeitgeist Films. Donna K’s blog began as a way to document the making of her partner Brent Green’s film of the same name. See a trailer for the film here.

On my very last night in Basel I had the pleasure of performing at Kaskadenkondensator, a space for experimental performance, also known simply as Kasko for short (the full name translates to “cascade condensor”). I had met Axel Topfer, a German artist living in Basel who worked at Kasko, and together we mounted an installation for a one-night event. The performance combined my usual suspects of music, costume, video, miniature sets, singing, and dancing with a physical set that contained and defined the action within it and utilized many of the physical objects I made during my residency. Though packing and cleaning was an endless nightmare afterward, the event was a sweet ending to my stay, the best kind of farewell.

I screened my video Ode on a Terran Urn at an event during Art Basel at the opening party for Basel art space Schwarzwaldallee NT. My work was shown in a mobile art space called Raum 19,6m³ – a trailer that Rafael Lutter ports around Switzerland, France, and Germany via a handsome red tractor. It’s really interesting to see the different ways the interior, exterior, and additional stage have been used over the years.

Nt Areal is an area of Basel that is sort of an industrial pocket that houses bars, restaurants (including one incredible Thai place), and a flea market on the weekends. As I understand it, it’s had a lively night life for years, but all that has been changing with the addition of some kinda fancy condos and mucho construction to take it more in that direction. Indeed there was so much work being done in the immediate area surrounding the art space that they weren’t sure exactly what it would look like the day of the show. In the end, we had plenty of space outside and an excellent turnout despite the crappy weather. Bonus points for dance party inside!

I’m interviewed in the 6/2011 issue of Kunstbulletin, a Swiss art magazine, and the title – Auf der Suche nach dem goldenen Spandex – is fondly translated above. The article is by Andrina Jorg, and Cat Tuong Nguyen photographed me. Here’s a permanent link to the English translation courtesy of Google – In Search of the Golden Spandex. It can also be read in German HERE.

Cover of the June issue as well as the photo, which is not included on the website.

Tonight in Milwaukee, WI, my video Ode on a Terran Urn will be screened at smallspace along with the artists below and a selection of youtube videos that I curated (including Horowitz & Spector, “Something’s Wrong in Transylvania” above). The screening is called “Do You Do This On Your Couch?” and is curated by Sara Caron. See below for more info:

Among many things to do this weekend in Milwaukee is “Do You Do This On Your Couch”, a video screening I’m describing as: “A gentle confluence of spacey-ness and placey-ness, asking you to think about ubiquitous or outdated media, think about how you might spend your time, think about community
with work by:

I’m including here some stills from my current project, Costume-Object Workshop. The project includes several individual pieces I initiated, often not knowing whether the end result would be a costume or an object/wall hanging, with some pieces functioning as both. The video component has been shown in one-channel and two-channel formats and features experiments with the costume pieces which evoke particular character movements and in some cases restrict movement to specific areas of the body. When shown alongside those pieces that ultimately became objects, the shape-characters in the video seem to exert their object-ness. The objects themselves are not-so-distant relatives of decorative home craft items but are elevated as art objects in relation to their potential relation to the body for performative purposes.